Friday, 14 February 2014

I feel heaven in you....

I've kind of gone off Coldplay. I think the rot set in before this album, but it's certainly there now. I know that they can't go on making "The Scientist" forever (that would basically make them Westlife), but the direction they've taken just doesn't do anything for me. Peaked with "X&Y" if you ask me. Still, this remains an excellent song. I was thinking of this when we had a conversation at work about when you hear a song used as a backing track for something, and it's *almost* a really well known song, but the cheap bastards have got something similar, but legally different, composed so they don't have to pay any royalties. Happens to this song a lot.

"The Number of the Beast" was a seminal album for me in my musical awakening, and I've just bought a 12" picture disc of the album. C. doesn't really understand, but it looks and sounds amazing. They were quite a punky band with their original vocalist (although Steve Harris vehemently denies it), but this was the first record they did with human foghorn Bruce Dickinson, and this is the first track. Bloody hell, but it still sounds amazing. Everyone probably remembers the title track, "Run to the Hills" and "Hallowed be thy Name", but the rest is pretty damn brilliant too. Thirty-two years old, ladies and gentlemen (thanks GJ!).

"Searching for Sugarman" tells a story so ridiculous, that if you didn't know it was true, you sure wouldn't believe it. Marvellous film, and a damn good soundtrack too. It's a really beautiful moment when his band start grooving on the intro to this, and the man many people thought had been dead for decades makes his appearance back from the dead on a South African stage....

After watching "The Book of Mormon" and having a late tea in a noodle bar, we headed down into the Tube to get back to our hotel. On the way down the escalators, there was a busker playing a screaming guitar solo, so wrapped up that he was barely aware of his surroundings. As we got closer, I realised that he was playing "Sweet Child O'Mine" and he was brilliant. I gave him some money of course, and as we stood on the platform, waiting for our train, he started playing this. I should have stayed to listen. Did anyone else see Gary Moore was on telly the other day playing a load of Hendrix classics? I know he's a good guitarist, but really? Really? Whose idea was that? (I forgot, actually, that Moore only died fairly recently, didn't he? RIP)

I saw Warpaint twice at Glastonbury, on the Peel Stage and at the Park, and they were excellent both times. Their new album is out, and it's really, really good late night listening. Highly recommended. Good song to have stuck in your head for VD, eh?

As AA Gill says of Morrissey's autobiography (laughably published as a Penguin Classic and a book I have no intention of reading, in spite of my love of some of his music), "A cacophony of jangling, misheard and misused words … a sea of Stygian self-justification and stilted self-conscious prose … a potential firelighter of vanity, self-pity and logorrhoeic dullness...laughably overwrought and overwritten, a litany of retrospective hurt and score-settling that reads like a cross between Madonna and Catherine Cookson" God, but Morrissey is an idiot, isn't he? So much of an idiot that he can be skewered so effectively by a prat like Gill.

Two songs from the new album, and both questions. I know some people hate it, but I really love those trademarked high-pitched backing vocals that we first heard on "I Bet You Look Good on the Dance Floor" and have been present in most of their work since. The new album, AM, is a belter, and it's good to see that Alex Turner (27 years old, the bastard) may have spent many years in the USA now, but he's still got an absolutely beautifully Yorkshire turn of phrase. Excellent band.

Not my favourite song by the Foos by any stretch of the imagination. Probably not even in my top 20. But you know, when I put on a playlist of songs by the band the other day (and aren't they just a perfect band to playlist? I wouldn't say that any of their albums were essential, but they've done some absolutely belting songs and it's as good a playlist as I've made of anyone)... this is the song that stuck. Unfortunately used to soundtrack all kinds of sentimental shite, often involving the US military or somesuch, but it's a reasonable tune nonetheless. No "All My Life", but what is?

I bought this album as a postgraduate student at the university of York way back in the day. I was enough of a fan of the band that I already had most of their single releases on CD already. I got a frisbee free with the album, and as far as I know, it's still in the common room of my hall of residence because I forgot to take it home with me. Ah, 1996 was it? I remember listening to this and watching Miguel Indurain take the gold medal in the cycling road race at the Atlanta Olympic Games. No wonder my team at work think I'm old. I dug out my Ash greatest hits when I went running last night, and they sounded fantastic; the perfect choice of soundtrack for a run on a cold but really very clear night. I remember that, although Tim Wheeler wrote most of their songs, this one was co-written with the drummer. Given that he was chubby and speccy and had a ridiculous mohawk, I wish him nothing but the best. Incidentally, Shining Light, Life Less Ordinary, Goldfinger, Kung Fu, Orpheus.... these boys had some damn fine tunes. Damn fine.

And with that.... we're done. I hope you had a tolerable VD and a lovely weekend. See you on the other side, y'all.